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Our Own Operations

Tackling food waste in our own operations

We have made a commitment that no food that’s safe for human consumption will go to waste from our UK retail operations by the end of 2017/18.

We are working towards minimising the surplus in our distribution centres and in our stores; for example by reducing-to-clear food close to its expiry date. However, if food cannot be sold, we offer it to charities and community groups who help feed people in need.

Community Food Connection

We work with FareShare to donate surplus food from our stores. Through Community Food Connection, Tesco colleagues can inform local charities how much surplus food they have at the end of each day by using the FareShare FoodCloud app. The charity picks it up free of charge and turns it into meals for those in need.Through Community Food Connection we have donated over six million meals to over 3,500 charities and organisations.

No Food Waste to Landfill since 2009

Since 2009 no food from Tesco has gone to landfill. Bakery surplus which we’re unable to donate to charity is made into animal feed for livestock. Our chicken fat and cooking oil is converted into bio-diesel. Where all other options are not available, we recover energy from food waste through anaerobic digestion or incineration

Central Europe

We are also working hard to reduce food waste in our international businesses.We run a food surplus programme in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. More than 400 stores across Central Europe are currently part of our food surplus donation programme and so far we have donated over 14.5 million meals to local foodbanks and charities since 2013. Our commitment is to offer food surplus for donation from all Central European stores by 2020.

Asia

We are currently trialling the Robin Food application in two stores in Malaysia and will expand the programme this year. Like the FareShare FoodCloud app, Robin Food alerts local food bank partners to the amount of food surplus we have each day.

Food Waste Data

We were the first UK retailer to publish independently assured food waste data for our own operations.Publishing a detailed breakdown of our waste enables us to identify hotspots and take action. This has enabled us to work in partnership with others to reduce food waste and increase food surplus redistribution in a targeted way.